


All Hours

by Twyd



Series: Hours [1]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Emotional, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Relationships, Implied Slash, Internal Conflict, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Poor Life Choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 07:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14183469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: The call does not alarm Shinra. He gets all kind of calls, at all hours, although one from Izaya, wordlessly sobbing, is a first.





	All Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Angst with a capital A y'all.

The call does not alarm Shinra. He gets all kinds of calls, at all hours, although this kind of call coming from Izaya is unusual. He waits for a full minute, listening to the other's sobs, before hanging up and asking Celty to take him straight to the informant's home.

He tells her not to wait, even though he has a feeling he won’t be long. He has a bad feeling about going up there, and he wants more than anything to protect her from all that is bad, even if she has ten times the resilience he could ever hope for.

He tips his head up to Izaya's building when she's gone, and wants almost there and then to run away. To  _crawl_ away. There are many reasons why he wants to keep Izaya and Celty separate, why he doesn't ever want to be around Izaya when he's truly vulnerable.

Shinra goes into the apartment and up the elevator. He lets himself into Izaya's front door when he sees it has been left open. In all of the ten seconds it takes him to get to the couch, his worst fears are confirmed: Izaya is crying with no hint of a physical injury. He gives the doctor a desperate look.

Shinra checks him over anyway, determined to stick to his routine. He does this wordlessly, as if Izaya were unconscious. He finds no injury, no sign of drugs or alcohol, his pupil un-dilated. Izaya has called him because he is upset. Because Shinra is his friend. Shinra doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know what may have prompted it, if he'd killed someone or if he'd thought over his life choices and realised how poor they were.

"Izaya," Shinra sighs, with infinite pity.

He had loved Izaya once, sort of, and he’s scared of those feelings resurfacing. Terrified, in fact. He knows Izaya knows he loved him, and he wants, needs, just an inch of that now, an inch Shinra isn’t willing to give. He finds himself thinking of Shizuo, how he'd hoped he and Izaya would be friends, as they'd be better friends to each other than he was for either of them.

He reaches out and brushes away one of Izaya’s tears with his thumb, keeping his hand on his cheek. Izaya closes his eyes as Shinra leans in to kiss his forehead. He should be wary of Izaya misinterpreting this, but he knows somehow that he won’t.

Then he sits back and feels into his bag, feels for a pack of sleeping pills and tears off two only. He’s not stupid.

“Take these,” he says, as tenderly as he can, putting them in front of Izaya on the coffee table. “They’ll help. Things will look better in the morning.”

Izaya stares at the pills dully, as if he can't quite register this disappointment. There is nothing more to say.

Shinra gives his hand an awkward little squeeze and leaves him, half hating himself, half relieved. Once outside, he forces himself to check his watch. He’d been there a total of 10 minutes.

He takes a cab instead of calling Celty, pays him to take the long way home. Then he lies to her when he gets home, so she'll never know what a coward he really is.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to a (longer) oneshot that will be posted soon.


End file.
